I didn't posit that as an absolute rule, Michelle, but the fact is that I have, on more than one occasion, driven out of a situation that if I had been in a larger vehicle, I wouldn't have been able to. Is it not possible that in the GEO Metro your husband could have seen it coming and swerved out of the way and not been hit at all?

Every potential accident situation is different, so it's hard to set general rules--including "you're safer in a bigger, heavier vehicle," (the rational many people use because they want the panache of an SUV or a truck when they actually have no practical use for one).   Hence my example of the SUV and the Greyhound bus.

Don Firth